Annual Camping Trip

About 2 weeks ago we had our annual VanRhee camping trip, this year was at Hungry Horse again. It was not quite the same as in the past b/c my parents were not there b/c my mom had knee surgery the week before and my brother and his wife had cancelled earlier b/c she did not want to be camping with a 3 week old baby, thats understandable :) but we still had a great time with my sister and my other brother. The weather for the most part was nice except one evening/morning it rained. I was a little nervous about having a 6 week old camping but it went smoothly, John took time off from work and was around to help most of the time. The older boys had a blast too and are still talking about it and looking forward to next year, I think we are going to try Tri-Ponds next year. I have posted quite a few pics, but I have even more on FB. I was not going to download them all again.


Hanging around the campfire. The first photo is of all the cousins minus Levi, he was sleeping in the camper. The second is of some of the adults.

The group playing some Blackjack, even Levi :)

The boys just being boys...

This is how Levi spent his time at the pool

Having fun at the pool. One thing about Hungry Horse that I like is that they have a big pool and a kiddie pool.

This is how they looked most of the time...VERY dirty. We had one night/morning that it rained and we had a huge puddle in front of our camper and they did not miss the oppurtunity to play in it.

John's Mini-Me

This past Saturday we went out to the farm for

Riley to ride his dirtbike without the training wheels. He was finally ready and he did awesome, I am so proud of him, but very nervous at the same time- he did almost hit a tree! He is so excited he already wants to race, but he needs some more practice. John is going to build him a pee-wee track on my brothers land until we move out to our property. Watching Riley ride brought back lots of memories of when John and I were dating, he also had a dirtbike and raced. I came across this pic that took me forever to figure out how to scan and get it to the right size, but I sure see alot of similarities-he is definetly his son.

2 months

Levi will be 8 weeks old tomorrow. As you can tell in the picture below that he is getting chubby and has a double chin. He goes to the doctor at the end of the month then I will post his stats, but I think he is on track to be a big boy- on a regular scale he already weighs 13 lbs! and that was 2 weeks ago. Anyway he continues to be a happy baby, he smiles and coos alot more. He loves to stare at ceiling fans and lights. He also enjoys being outside. His favorite thing to be in is the new swing that we got him, it swings side to side vs. the back and forth which he does not like. It has a mobile above him that plays music which he loves to watch, he even "talks" to it. He eats every 4 hours and drinks 6 oz. I think that he really enjoys a routine, hes up for about an hour to play and then back to sleep in his crib until he needs to eat again. He does not do well when his sleep is interuppted to go some where, if I do this to many times in a day hes crabby by the end of the day. He still does not sleep through the night, I hope that it happens soon. Right now he will go 5-6 hour stretches. I have to work on those stretches being a little later at night. Right now he goes down around 8-9 ( 10-11 would be more ideal, but I'm not in charge :)) then up around 2-3 a.m and then again around 5-6 and that is still to early for me to start the day so we go back to sleep till about 9. This will soon change as Riley starts school in 2 weeks and need to be there at 8:30. Anyway.... The pictures below are from our recent camping trip, he did really well and we had lots of fun.

Levi and his favorite pipe, we finally found one that he will keep in his mouth, its the Gumdrop Soothie, I had to order them online.

Best Buddies

I finally got a picture of Levi and his cousin Max together. I have not seen him since he was born and that was 4 weeks ago. They are only two weeks apart and I think they are going to be good buddies and probally cause a lot of mischief too. What a difference 2 weeks makes, Levi looks so chubby and they were both born at pretty much the same weight and height.

First Smiles

Levi has been smiling alot more lately. He first gave me a smile 2 weeks ago and I finally got some decent pictures of him smiling today, its so hard b/c the moment is brief. He has been trying really hard to talk too, I have heard a few small coos come out.

Sorry these are a little blurry, they were my first attempt at capturing a smile while holding him.